U.S. Reps. Kevin Brady (R-TX) and Tom Marino (R-PA) reacted on Friday to a Department of Labor report that found that only 38,000 jobs were added in May.
The Department of Labor also reported that the country’s workforce participation rate dropped to a four-decade low of 62.6 percent.
Brady, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, called the jobs report “troubling news” because of slowing job growth and involuntary part-time work on the rise.
“Starting (this) week, we are unveiling our pro-growth solutions for addressing some of our nation’s most pressing challenges,” Brady said. “We refuse to accept millions of families living in poverty. We refuse to accept slow wage growth. We refuse to accept a failing health care system. And we refuse to accept a broken tax code that discourages innovation and job creation. We look forward to offering the American people an alternative that will move our country forward.”
Marino added that the jobs report is “sickening” and that hard-working Americans still face economic turmoil and a lack of opportunity in the Obama administration’s eighth year.
“President Obama continues to boast about the economic conditions he has created, but his failed policies have nearly halted job growth and dramatically affected our labor force participation,” Marino said. “I continue to hear stories all across Pennsylvania’s 10th district of good people struggling to find work or losing their jobs due to cutbacks. American families deserve better. As chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, I will work to cut the bureaucratic red tape that prevents growth and stifles entrepreneurship.”
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, the president of the American Action Forum, called the May jobs report “a disaster.”
“It is weak enough to scare the Fed off of any rate increase, despite the fact that it would probably be smart to start moving rates toward normal,” Holtz-Eakin said. “It’s also a sign that President Obama should interrupt his economic victor tour.”
Holtz-Eakin noted that the labor force fell by 458,000, the teenage unemployment rate was at 16 percent and the Hispanic unemployment rate was 5.6 percent.